Judgment

“ So again with our thoughts: in so far as we can suspend our assent to a judgment, and balance reasons for or against accepting it into the general system of our beliefs, the judgment clearly belongs to the external not-self. ”

“ Gentlemen, upon your consciences be it; the preservation of the government, the life of the King, the safety and honour of our religion, and the discharge of our consciences as loyal men, good Christians, and faithful subjects, are at stake; neither her age or her sex are to move you who have nothing else to consider but the evidence of the fact you are to try. I charge you therefore, as you will answer it at the bar of the last judgment, where you and we must all appear, deliver your verdict according to conscience and truth. ”

“ May I suppose that the judgment is given in the hearing of us all by one who is able to judge, and has dwelt in the same place with him, and been present at his daily life and known him in his family relations, where he may be seen stripped of his tragedy attire, and again in the hour of public danger—he shall tell us about the happiness and misery of the tyrant when compared with other men? ”

“ I have ever used to set the last judgment-day before mine eyes, and so to rule as I shall be judged to answer before a higher Judge—to whose judgment-seat I do appeal, that never thought was cherished in my heart that tended not to my people's good. ”

“ O most tender Saviour, whose book in the day of judgment shall be opened, that Thy life may be as a law and living rule by which judgment shall be made of ours, permit me not to write in the book of my conscience anything that may be contrary to Thy book! ”

“ To scour and wring, to bleach, and scorch, or freeze
For some a mill-stream whirls a crime about,
Or a furnace roars a rich baseness out. [79]
Just the Judgment, every judgment true;
Each of us bears no more than is his due;
High as the merits of our kith and kin,
None but himself can carry his own sin. ”

“ We must decide those questions as a matter of calm study and judgment in the light of human experience. It is the judgment that should tell us whether a thing is right or wrong. And how shall we know whether it is right or wrong? ”

“ How habitually warped, how unsteady, how feeble, the judgment becomes, which is not kept bright and vigorous through right use. How insensibly we become callous or indolent about forming a correct judgment. ”

“ JUDGING, ASKING, AND GIVING 'Judge not, that ye be not judged. 2. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. 3. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? 4. Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye! ”

“ And in that how great, O ye immortal gods! is the error of those men who have desired that law. For the meaner the condition of each judge is, the greater will be the severity of judgment with which he will seek to efface the idea of his meanness ”

“ In all that thou doest, remember the end, and how thou wilt stand before a strict judge, from whom nothing is hid, who is not bribed with gifts, nor accepteth excuses, but will judge righteous judgment. ”

“ The duty of private judgment, of searching after truth, the sacredness of belief which ought not to be misused on unproved statements, follow only on showing of the enormous importance to society of a true knowledge of things. ”

“ They shall not stand in the judgment, that is, they shall be found guilty, shall hang down the head with shame and confusion, and all their pleas and excuses will be overruled as frivolous. There is a judgment to come, in which every man's present character and work, though ever so artfully concealed and disguised, shall be truly and perfectly discovered, and appear in their own colours, and accordingly every man's future state will be, by an irreversible sentence, determined for eternity. The ungodly must appear in that judgment, to receive according to the things done in the body. ”

“ We follow our difficulty into another department. Let us attempt a sort of provisional psychological description of a judgment as a state of mind. So regarded, a judgment is simply a fact that occurs in somebody’s thought. If we try to describe it as an occurrence, without asking whence it came, we shall perhaps find in it three elements, — elements which are in some fashion described in Ueberweg’s well-known definition of a judgment as the “Consciousness about the objective validity of a subjective union of ideas.” ”

“ But, my lords, it is to be observed, that they who so warmly recommend the strictest adherence to justice, seem not fully to understand the duty which they urge. To do justice, my lords, is to act with impartiality, to banish from the mind all regard to personal motives, and to consider every question in its whole extent, without suffering the attention to be restrained to particular circumstances, or the judgment to be obstructed by partial affection. ”

“ From pride, deception, from a sensual life, remain free. Know this, that what of good actions thou practicest thy people will also perform. "Dost thou desire to become a judge, then must thou be courageous, sharp-sighted, quick of comprehension, and a man of sound judgment. Thou must know what thy case has before it and behind it; thou must be a judge of men. ”

“ There are cases when, with a clear consciousness of the rectitude of our purpose, and a strong confidence in the justice of our judgment, we must step over all human laws, be the result to ourselves what it may. ”

“ And as in practical matters we, ordinary men that is, are seldom called upon to act as judges except in questions where their own sympathies or interests are concerned; the faculty to be trained is the judgment, the practical judgment at work among matters in which its possessor is deeply interested, not from the desire of Truth only, but from his own involution in the matters of which he is to judge. ”

“ Now it is at the last end that all this mystery will be discovered; at the general judgment, when God will appear in all His majesty in the presence of all mankind, and when all the wondrous ways of His Divine Providence shall be revealed, and His justice manifested in all His doings; for " He hath prepared His throne in judgment; He shall judge the world in equity, He shall judge the people in justice. ”

“ The judgment here meant is not all clotted together, as it were, in that final act of judgment, leaving the previous life without it, but it runs all through the ages, all through each man's days. I beseech you to ponder that thought, that at each moment of each of our lives an estimate of the moral character of each of our deeds is present to the Divine mind. ”

“ And, lastly, Judgment,—to decide how and where, and in what degree, each of these faculties ought to be exerted; so that the less shall not be sacrificed to the greater; nor the greater, slighting the less, arrogate, to its own injury, more than its due. ”

“ Judgment is not a tribunal dawning on the close of the world's weary centuries, but the momentary assimilation of a celestial or an infernal love leading to states and acts, rewards and retributions, corresponding. ”

“ As then we bring those things which reason hunts after, to sense, and by it judge what kind of things they are, whether the things spoken be true or false, and then sit in judgment no longer, giving full credit to its decision; so also we refer all that is said regarding men and the world to the truth, and by it judge whether it be worthless or no. ”

“ In real life, it corresponds to what we commonly call judgment, and is that faculty by which the transactions of men are regulated, and the resolutions of the will are brought to maturity, whether in sacred or secular concerns. ”

“ It is an essential point that the two ingredients of a judicial cognisance, the judgment as to the state of the fact, and the judgment as application of the law to it, should, as at bottom different sides, be exercised as different functions. ”

“ The judgment is an utensil proper for all subjects, and will have an oar in everything: which is the reason, that in these Essays I take hold of all occasions where, though it happen to be a subject I do not very well understand, I try, however, sounding it at a distance, and finding it too deep for my stature, I keep me on the shore; ”

“ And lastly, let us swallow no man's judgments, without judging of it and him; and yield up our reason to no man's authority, nor our interest to any man's direction, any farther than prudence or necessity obliges us. Let us remember what the world has ever got by implicit faith of any kind whatsoever. ”

“ Is the religious judgment, Whatever is, is right, a merely analytical judgment, so that what is is right merely because it is, and the predicate “right” is merely an idle other name for what is already named by its true and best name “is”? ”

“ This faculty of the mind, when it is exercised immediately about things, is called judgment ; when about truths delivered in words, is most commonly called assent or dissent : which being the most usual way, wherein the mind has occasion to employ this faculty, I shall, under these terms, treat of it, as least liable in our language to equivocation. ”

“ So that if you would form a just judgment of what is of infinite importance to you not to be misled in,—namely, in what degree of real merit you stand either as an honest man, an useful citizen, a faithful subject to your king, or a good servant to your God,—call in religion and morality.—Look,—What is written in the law of God?—How readest thou?— Consult calm reason and the unchangeable obligations of justice and truth;- -what say they? ”

“ The Processes implied in a ‘Conscientious’ Decision.—​Therefore, it is plain that before conscience is in a position to pronounce its verdict on the facts of a given case, the cultivated reason must review the pros and cons; the practised judgment must balance these, deciding which have the greater weight. ”

“ But I am I, and I won’t subordinate my taste to the unanimous judgment of mankind. ”

“ For example, all the judgments of a judge who has justice for his end and venerates and loves this as Divine, while he detests adjudications for the sake of reward, for friendship, or from favour, as flagitious; for so he consults the good of his country, by causing justice and judgment to reign therein as in heaven, and so he consults the peace of every harmless citizen, and protects him from the violence of evil-doers; all which are good works. ”

“ He sees us all, and sees all our goings; go where we will, we are under his eye; all our actions, good and evil, are regarded and recorded and reserved to be brought into judgment when the books shall be opened. ”

“ The sources of objective moral judgment in the world of time and circumstance are also thus laid open to the experience of each mind, in the power to consult the public judgment and to verify or correct the private judgment by it. ”

“ But the usual supposition at the outset is that any judgment has by itself its own object, so that thereby alone, apart from other judgments, it stands or falls. And thus far we have tried to show that this natural supposition leads us into difficulty. We cannot see how a single sincere judgment should possibly fail to agree with its own chosen object. But enough of our problem in general. ”

“ Why will there be a general judgment besides the particular?
For three principal reasons: 1. That God's wisdom and justice may be acknowledged by all men; 2. That Jesus Christ may be glorified before the whole world; and 3. That the good may receive the honor due to them, and the wicked the dishonor they have deserved. ”

“ If the correctness of the view here presented is seen and admitted, we may be permitted again to remind you of the absurdity of supposing that a general judgment will soon, or at any time, take place in the natural world. ”

“ And, perhaps, if it were possible, that a set of beings, seemingly as superior in our judgment, as we are in theirs, should appear amongst us, it might be doubted, whether our natural regard to justice would be able to restrain many from falling into the same error. ”

“ Truly, at the day of judgment we shall not be examined as to what we have read, but as to what we have done; ”

“ It will be needful for clearing our way, to shew what length we may warrantably go in this matter of executing judgment, in our private capacity, in extraordinary cases of necessity, by setting down some propositions negative and positive, signifying what we disown, and what we own in this point. ”

“ To find practical definite methods by which you shall make it somebody’s duty to see that the great principles you declare are not violated, by which if an attempt be made to violate them the responsibility may be fixed upon the guilty individual—those, in my judgment, are the problems to which you should specifically and most earnestly address yourselves. ”

“ In judgment of others a man laboureth in vain, often erreth, and easily sinneth; but in judging and examining himself, he always laboureth fruitfully. ”

“ Laws for judges; the rest of the seventh year, and day: three principal feasts to be solemnized every year; the promise of an angel, to conduct and protect them: idols are to be destroyed.
23:1. Thou shalt not receive the voice of a lie: neither shalt thou join thy hand to bear false witness for a wicked person.
23:2. Thou shalt not follow the multitude to do evil: neither shalt thou yield in judgment, to the opinion of the most part, to stray from the truth.
23:3. Neither shalt thou favour a poor man in judgment. ”

“ Moreover, the judgment we pass on ourselves, as being sincere or hypocrites, accepted or rejected of God, is to be formed by comparing our conduct with scripture, as the rule by which we are to try the goodness or badness of our state, and of our actions.
4. A rule must have nothing of a different nature set up in competition with, or opposition to it ”